Choosing to believe

This article defends a regulative ethics of voluntary belief. In order to determine the occasion and the scope of such an ethics, the article begins with an examination of the concept of belief in conversation with the view of J. L. Schellenberg. Next, against the dominant position in contemporary epistemology, it argues that some beliefs can be voluntary, in the sense that they are under the immediate control of the believer, and replies to William Alston’s influential objections to doxastic voluntarism. If some beliefs are subject to the immediate control of the believer, then in these cases believers are ethically responsible not only for how they investigate those beliefs, but also for the choice of whether or not to believe them. The article concludes by formulating and defending two types of regulative ethical principles governing voluntary belief.     

The moderating role of attachment styles in emotional bonding with service providers

In this paper, the authors combine insights from several attachment theories to develop a model that help understanding how customer‐service provider emotional attachment (EA) is formed and how customers' attachment styles moderate this formation process. The authors test their predictions with survey data from 416 customers in two service contexts (i.e., grocery retailing and hairstyling). Results indicate that positive emotions and service quality are the most powerful predictors of EA. They also show that attachment styles moderate the effect of positive emotions, service quality, image congruency, and trust. Moreover, results identify preoccupied (versus fearful) customers as those who are the most (versus the least) emotionally tied to their service providers. This research provides several implications for researchers and managers. Additionally, it offers attachment styles as a new segmentation criterion. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A twelfth‐century Muslim biography of Jesus

The biography of Jesus as it appears in Ibn ‘Asakir's Tarikh madinat dimashq comprises material which originated from the Qur'an and from the Bible (the Old and the New Testaments). It also comprises material that is neither qur'anic nor biblical: material reflecting an image of Jesus whom the Sūfi order in the medieval period was using as the prophetic authority for its ascetic teachings, and whose purpose was to make him a prototype of the ascetic (al_zahid). Furthermore, Ibn ‘Asakir, writing at the time of the Crusades, believed in the imminent qiyama of Jesus to lead the Muslims to victory and to defeat the invaders. Ibn ‘Asakir's biography of Jesus reflects the extent to which literature about the earthly career of Jesus had developed in Muslim lore by his time.     

Spatial reference frames and SNARC

In this work, the role that spatial reference frames play in determining the spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect is examined. Participants were instructed to generate an image of the numbers 1–9 oriented spatially in either a horizontal, vertical, or proximo-distal manner. Responses to a magnitude comparison task were then provided manually using keys located either to the left and right or at the bottom and top of a computer keyboard. For conditions in which the orientation of the generated image and the response locations were orthogonally misaligned, SNARC effects were not evident. It is argued that such results imply that alignment of the spatial reference frames associated with the responses and with the representation of numerical magnitude is a necessary condition for the elicitation of the SNARC effect.     

The Rutgers Arm, a rehabilitation system in virtual reality: a pilot study.

Stroke is one of the leading causes of death and disability worldwide. Its prevalence calls for innovative rehabilitation methods. The Rutgers Arm is a novel upper extremity rehabilitation system consisting of a low-friction table, three-dimensional (3D) tracker, custom forearm support, PC workstation, library of Java 3D virtual reality (VR) exercises, clinical database module, and a tele-rehabilitation extension. The system was tested on a chronic stroke subject, under local and tele-rehabilitation conditions, over 5 weeks of training. Results show improvements in arm motor control and shoulder range of motion, corresponding to improved Fugl-Meyer test scores. Exercise duration, level of difficulty, and patient motivation were maintained under tele-rehabilitaion. A 1-week retention trial showed that gains were maintained.     

Clinique sociale du champ algérien: Psychopathologie des conduites à l’adolescence

This reflection considers asks of the practices deviating with adolescence in the plans of the clinical approach and theoretical reading. The complexity of the behavioural productions in the field of youth reveals, at the same time, the problems of adaptive rules, whose failures was attested on the register of many psychopathological formulations, as well as the limits of a coexistence based on antagonistic emotions. The teenagers, then, are been confronted with the unrealism of their phantasms. They are also introduced to the rigidity of the social and cultural forms and policies of their environment. The instability of the moderating or integrating referents of the institutional, family and psychosocial areas confers the search for discharge system meant in the expression of marginal rites and the development of peripheral places, symbolic systems of cohesive membership and singular identity.     

Religiosity, Religious Doubt, and the Need for Cognition: Their Interactive Relationship with Life Satisfaction

Previous research has found a consistent, negative relationship between holding religious doubts and mental well-being, and a small positive relationship between religiosity and mental well-being. To assess the interrelationship between religious doubt, religiosity, and need for cognition on life satisfaction, a survey was administered to an almost exclusively Christian sample of 192 Americans drawn from undergraduates and alumni of a small mid-western college, undergraduates from a small south-eastern college, and several churches from the metro-Detroit area. Zero-order correlations revealed relationships between religiosity and life satisfaction, as well as religious doubt and life satisfaction. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that the three-way interaction of religiosity, religious doubt, and the need for cognition was predictive of life satisfaction. Significant two-way interactions also emerged for both gender and religiosity, and gender and religious doubt as predictors of life satisfaction. Based upon these findings, counseling applications are discussed, and the importance of probing for interactions in research on religious influences on well-being is espoused. Portions of this research were presented at the 2004 Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Honolulu, HI.     

Evidence for adaptive shoulder-elbow control in cyclical movements with different amplitudes, frequencies, and orientations

The evolution of joint dynamics and muscle patterning in the shoulder and elbow was studied for cyclical line drawing tasks at different frequencies, amplitudes, and orientations in the horizontal plane. Three main modes of control were identified: elbow-centered, shoulder-centered, and elbow-shoulder, each referring to the principal joints or joint combinations that were used to achieve the behavioral goals. The contribution of the shoulder joint was most prominent across the majority of movement orientations and largely paralleled changes in the dynamic (inertial) forces in the end effector (shoulder-centered control). The two joints either exchanged roles during the performance of the right diagonal movement (elbow-centered control) or shifted from a single-joint strategy to a dual-joint strategy during the performance of large amplitudes with low or medium cycling frequencies (shoulder-elbow control). These behavioral results support the existence of a modular control mode that allows the central nervous system to effectively tune motor commands to meet a broad variety of orientations, amplitudes, and frequencies. This refers to the emergence of a context-dependent control mode for the shoulder and elbow that optimizes the implementation of the underlying motor goals under a rich combination of spatial and temporal manipulations.     

The Trinity in Qur’anic Idiom: Q 4.171 and the Christian Arabic Presentation of the Trinity as God,his Word,and his Spirit

ABSTRACT

Since the early centuries of Islam, the Qur’an’s deep imprint on Arabophone Christians has been evident, not only in their evocation of qur’anic language, but also in their creative employment of the text in constructing their own orthodox Christian Arabic theology. This article investigates the presentation of the Trinity as ‘God, his Word, and his Spirit’ in Christian Arabic theological tracts in the early centuries of Islam. It argues that Q 4.171 played a foundational role in constructing a distinct Christian Arabic Trinitarian theology and that Arabophone Christian writers discerned in it the nucleus of what could be developed as an orthodox Trinitarian theology. It traces the development of the Christian Arabic Trinitarian formulation in four works by Arabophone authors: John Damascene’s On Heresies 100; On the Triune Nature of God; the interreligious disputation in the court of the ?Abbāsid Caliph al-Ma?mūn attributed to the theologian Theodore Abū Qurra; and the apologetic letter by ?Abd al-Masī? al-Kindī. This article also makes observations on the implications of the Christian Arabic theological project for interreligious encounter in the early Islamic centuries.